Too Big Or Too Small?

A lot of people are having fun with the idea of Barack Obama’s postmodern presidency. Mark Steyn suggests that Obama may be the first president for whom the office just isn’t good enough:

Many Americans are beginning to pick up the strange vibe that for Barack Obama, governing America is “an interesting sociological experiment”, too. He would doubtless agree that the United States is “the place on Earth that, if I needed one, I would call home.” But he doesn’t, not really: It is hard to imagine Obama wandering along to watch a Memorial Day or Fourth of July parade until the job required him to. That’s not to say he’s un-American or anti-American, but merely that he’s beyond all that. Way beyond. He’s the first president to give off the pronounced whiff that he’s condescending to the job – that it’s really too small for him, and he’s just killing time until something more commensurate with his stature comes along.
And so the Gulf spill was an irritation, but he dutifully went through the motions of flying in to be photographed looking presidentially concerned. As he wearily explained to Matt Lauer, “I was meeting with fishermen down there, standing in the rain, talking…” Good grief, what more do you people want? Alas, he’s not a good enough actor to fake it.

Too big for the office? Well, maybe. But Michael Ramirez is skeptical. He sums up Obama’s stature nicely; click to enlarge: